Human Rights – Page 11 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Prisoner Enfranchisement in Ireland

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:February 20, 2015
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Election Law Human Rights Prisoner Rights Public

I was surprised to learn recently from an Irish law professor that Ireland gave its prisoners the right to vote in 2006. Felon disenfranchisement is such a pervasive fact of life in the United States that many Americans might assume, as I did, that this is the accepted practice everywhere. This turns out not to be the case. Ireland is hardly alone, even among the common-law countries, in giving prisoners the right to vote, although the case of Ireland may be unusual in that its legislature acted in the absence of a court directive. Canada and South Africa, by contrast, required court rulings before their prisoners were enfranchised. The Irish story is nicely recounted in an article by Cormac Behan and Ian O’Donnell: “Prisoners, Politics and the Polls: Enfranchisement and the Burden of Responsibility,” 48 Brit. J. Criminology 319 (2008).

Before proceeding with the Irish story, a little on the American situation:

Wisconsin to Allow Same-Sex Marriage

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:October 8, 2014
Post category:Civil Rights Human Rights Public Seventh Circuit U.S. Supreme Court Western District of Wisconsin

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court quietly denied certiorari on cases from three federal courts of appeals (the 4th Circuit, the 7th Circuit, and the 10th Circuit) that found bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. The Court’s denial leaves those federal decisions standing, thus making same-sex marriage legal in five states: Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The decision is also likely to mean that the other states covered by those federal appellate court districts—Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wyoming—will also allow same-sex marriage. Or at least, they can’t ban it.

Most surprising to many SCOTUS observers was that the Court made no comment about its decision to deny certiorari.

The Gender Binary

Post author:Anna High
Post published:November 22, 2013
Post category:Constitutional Law Family Law Human Rights Public

Western society has traditionally assumed a gender binary, classifying sex and gender as “male” or “female.” This binary is reflected in many aspects of our legal system. However in recent decades, the gender binary, and related assumptions about the fixed nature and unambiguous meaning of sex and gender, has been challenged by transsexual, transgendered and intersex people seeking legal recognition of their sex and/or gender identity and protection from discrimination based thereon.

In the US, the majority of states now permit alteration of sex on birth certificates for transsexual persons (whether sex-reassignment surgery is required varies from state to state), although a handful of states still take a “fixed from birth” approach to legal sex. The legal landscape in relation to marriage for transsexual people is similarly inconsistent and in flux.

Challenging the fixed nature of sex/gender is an important development, but in most jurisdictions, the gender binary has been kept legally intact. More recently, some jurisdictions are grappling with the question of “other-gendered” and “other-sexed” persons (the terms are not synonymous – the Norrie case, below, was framed as an issue of biological sex, not gender identity.) The issue has come to a head in Australia, where special leave to appeal to the High Court has been granted in a case involving a person who wishes to be recognized as legally genderless.